In the Dream
by Tolakasa
Summary: Post 6.21 Let It Bleed. Head injuries do a number on your dreams, apparently.


Written for an unintentional prompt from kalliel: Does post-S6 Lisa sometimes have weird Gumby dreams, wisps of things Castiel didn't understand and couldn't effectively erase? Does she dream of Gumby, and Pokey, and that Wild West storybook? Does she dream of a tall, soulless Farmer Glenn? (Or is Farmer Glenn an angel in a trenchcoat?)

* * *

 **In the Dream**

The dreams start while Lisa's in the hospital.

To be technical, they start the next nap after the guy in the other car—and can she just say, _damn_ —comes in to apologize. It's sweet of him, all things considered. Not like he hit them on purpose or anything.

He reminds her of somebody, actually. She can't think who, though. Some old memory that can't quite get to the surface.

Which doesn't explain why the hell she has a long, detailed dream about fucking Gumby.

Well, not exactly _fucking_ Gumby, although it was close. Luckily, she woke up before Claymation sex.

...that time.

It makes no sense. She never _watched_ Gumby. Everything she knows about Gumby comes from old commercials and stray TV references. Oh, there had been that one overwhelmed guy who called her Gumby Girl, but that had been a one-weekend-stand ages ago in her wilder days, long before she became a respectable single mother, and she doesn't even remember his name. Hell, she doesn't even remember what he looked like.

Which is actually a little weird, because that had been one _hell_ of a weekend, but she supposes eventually even that kind of memory gets worn away by day-to-day life.

On the advice of a friend who took three psychology courses, Lisa finally starts writing the dreams down, and now she wonders if she got a head injury that nobody told her about.

She documents a whole little family of Gumbys—she's an ordinary one, Ben's a shorter one, and Mr. Sexy Gumby has green eyes and a jacket that she thinks is supposed to be leather. He's broken and overprotective and she knows that at some point he saved their lives. Maybe more than once.

It doesn't seem to be formal, this whatever-they-have, but sometimes he wraps her in a hug and they send Gumby-Ben off to his Gumby-room so that they can have Gumby-sex, and in the morning he makes Gumby-pancakes for the whole little Gumby-family and it's usually around then that Lisa wakes up, completely freaked out and convinced that she's forgotten something way more important than whether or not the alarm's set.

Oh, and craving pancakes.

Pancakes used to be a rare treat, but now they have them at least twice a week. Ben loves it.

Her hips, not so much.

There are others too, but they don't show up as much. One's a very tall Gumby-guy (are Gumbys an actual species? Should she be listing them as one in this dream? What the fuck is wrong with her subconscious?) who sorta flickers, like he's not always all there; he's mean sometimes, broody sometimes, and sometimes just normal, and _always_ greeted by her Gumby-guy with such enthusiasm that they're either brothers, or Mr. Sexy Gumbyis bi and has a Gumby-guy on the side. There's a wacky version of Pokey that's black and chrome and on wheels, instead of walking around on feet, that follows her Gumby-dude around like a puppy. And a lurking little blue-eyed figure with a flasher trenchcoat and angel wings, never interacting but always there, who somehow manages to be pathetic _and_ threatening, like a sad Claymation attempt at making the Weeping Angels child-friendly.

Maybe she does need to see a trauma counselor. The wreck wasn't all that bad—it could have been so much worse—but clearly the knock on her head triggered some deep-seated issues.

Her friend gives her a Gumby-and-Pokey set for Christmas. Really, she needs new friends, but she puts the thing on a shelf in the kitchen, guarding the pancake mix.

The summer before Ben goes into high school, her mother shatters her femur (honestly, the woman is too damn old to be skateboarding), so they move back to Cicero to help her out. Lisa's in the grocery store one day when a woman comes up to her and starts chatting like they're long-lost friends. Lisa just stands there, nodding, wondering what the hell is going on and if a splurge on Chunky Monkey is worth this, when she gets asked, "And are you still with Dean? You two were a great couple."

Dean.

The August heat is undoubtedly murdering both Ben and Jerry, but Lisa can only stare open-mouthed at the woman.

Dean.

The Gumby-guy is _Dean_. He's the one who called her Gumby Girl.

The memories aren't entire; they're hazy and fragmented and really just enough to let her know that they're incomplete. She can't remember Dean's last name, or any of his numbers, or why he left—or why he stood there in the hospital apologizing to her without so much as indicating that they knew each other.

Or why he shows up in her dreams as a green Claymation character.

Her first instinct is to call him, because this shit is weird and Dean was the guy who got rid of weird shit—but she has no way of getting in touch with him. Even the number that she'd made herself memorize, the one for Singer's, is gone. Did _Dean_ do this to her somehow? _Make_ her and Ben forget him? Surely he wouldn't. He'd loved them.

She dreams Gumbys again that night, but it's the twisted little angel who takes center stage. "Human memory is not as straightforward as I thought it was," he says, frowning at her. "I did not think small green toys would be an issue."

For a heartbeat, just a heartbeat, she remembers everything: Dean and monsters and Sam and the demon and how she wound up in the hospital. This guy—

Okay, she still doesn't know who he is, but clearly he knows the Winchesters, and is friendly with them, so he must be one of the good guys. Right?

"You are safer if you don't know them."

Maybe she doesn't want to be _safe_ , then. Maybe she'd rather have her memories. Memories are _important_.

"I'm sorry," he said, and oddly enough, she believed him. "But Dean wanted you to be safe from everything that might want vengeance on him. Some of those creatures can track by memory. I will make certain to remove _all_ the associations this time."

"But I don't—"

Lisa wakes up. Another lovely morning tending her mother, who's eighty going on eighteen. She hopes there's not a physical therapy appointment today. Or if there is, it's Melinda, not Jose. Mom leers less at Melinda.

She gets dressed and heads downstairs. She checks on her mom, who's sleeping obscenely soundly for a senior citizen in traction, then tackles breakfast. Nothing fancy, it's a school day.

"Mom? Everything okay?"

"Huh?"

Ben gestures at the kitchen. "Are we expecting somebody?"

She blinks, and looks around. Pancakes and the works. This wasn't right. Not for a weekday. Weekdays are strictly cereal. She hasn't made pancakes in— Hell, since Christmas, maybe?

"I—" She thinks a moment. Something's missing again. She doesn't know what it is. She feels like she did after the accident, like her mind's been scooped out and inspected and shoved back in with no respect for where things were _supposed_ to go. "I guess I just felt like it," she says finally. She doesn't even remember _making_ the damn pancakes. She remembers coming into the kitchen, but after that, she totally blanked. Maybe she should call her doctor. Blackouts can't be a good sign. "Come on, eat up before the bus gets here."

She starts on the dishes, looking outside at the yard. The yard needs to be mowed. Might as well do that this afternoon, while Mom is drooling like a teenager over that ridiculous show she watches.

Why does her mother have Gumby and Pokey figures sitting on the windowsill? Honestly, that woman.

 ** _the end_**


End file.
